The first thing that struck me about Buckingham Palace's advert for an eco-gardener was that it wasn't very well-paid. Just £15,000, to maintain 42 acres to "the highest standards"; and that's not all. You would also, should your application succeed, be expected to manage the "Royal arisings". What exactly is an "arising"? Is it when the Queen decides she wants to have a rave? No, sir, it is not! (that would be a "Royal Happening").

This is what the Windsors call straw and manure. That's fine, except nobody else uses this. A straw, sorry, arisings poll of horse people found nobody who had even heard of it. The people who do know what it means are landscape gardeners, who use it for "materials forming the secondary or waste products of industrial operations".

So this is how the meeting went where the royals worded this advert: they Googled synonyms for "manure" and got "crap". Googled that, and got words so rude it turned their hair curly. They hastily amended it to "crap you find in gardens", and finally, after this bitter tour through the vulgarities of the language, arrived at "arisings".

The advert isn't clear on whether you'll have to carry on calling manure an "arising" as you go about your work, indeed, whether alluding directly to "manure" is a disciplinary matter. That's something to ask in the interview, maybe. The closing date is 13 February.